Discussion: Sanders’ Sole Senate Backer Says He's ‘Absolutely’ Against Convention Battle

Hope for it, put I wouldn’t but money on it.

4 Likes

Darn autocorrect.

Thanks for catching it. Changed.

1 Like

On multiple occasions Bernie has promised to take the revolution to the convention. How do you think he’s going to walk that back?

5 Likes

What does Sanders actually want? He can’t honestly claim that things are rigged when Hillary has more votes, more delegates, and more super delegates. Given the rules of the game, she is winning. It’s like Sanders is arguing that he should get 6 points for a touchdown in a baseball game he is losing.

5 Likes

Agree, and I think VP Biden’s recent remarks are aimed at the same gentle nudging or reminder.

3 Likes

“When a nominee wins a majority of both those categories, it is time for us to come together, link arms and go forward,” Merkley said. “It would be inconsistent, given the commentary on super-delegates, to depend on super-delegates to turn over those first two categories of evaluating party members’ support.”

Yup. And why is this oh-so-simple concept so difficult for Sanders’ supporters to understand? Because he keeps feeding them the narrative that the deck is stacked and its only unfair when he loses. Like everything he says, they eat it up.

7 Likes

I imagine party members are already putting pressure on him in the form of stripping him from committee assignments and maybe even a primary challenge in 2018.

Also, Senator Warren’s recent profile attacking Trump challenges Sanders’ putative claims of leading the Democratic Party’s left wing.

9 Likes

Yes…and cutting a deal with Fox without any communication with the DNC or Hillary is such an obvious indication that he is all about party unity. The fact that they have senior Sanders staffers on audio tape instigating the entire riot in Vegas, is a pretty clear indication of exactly where the Sanders campaign is with this.

It wasn’t an anomaly…its their game plan for going forward.

7 Likes

Add Merkley’s comments to Biden’s, and you can see that the Democratic Party has finally put their collective foot down.

I’m going to imagine that Sen. Boxer (and a few other people) called Obama over the weekend and told him: “This shit’s got to stop, and it’s got to stop now!!!”.

Either Bernie falls in line and acknowledges that he’s lost, or he’ll lose any and all goodwill he might have had with the Party. If there is any left at this point, anyway.

7 Likes

Bernie’s response to the brouhaha in Nevada was a test of character and a major decision point Michael Tomasky lays out pretty well in this article.

14 Likes

Absolutely agreed on that. It’s not just Clinton that Sanders is trying to take down it’s the whole Democratic Party. Look, if he’s got an issue with our candidate, that’s one thing. But by calling the whole Party corrupt, it puts other Dem pols down ballot in jeopardy as well. He’s basically saying, if HE can’t win, then no Dems should win either.

12 Likes

I tend to agree, but revolutions don’t amount to squat if the folks you’re “revolting” against are fully aware and very much ready for it.

“Squashed like a bug” is a phrase that comes to mind if Bernie thinks he’s going to be able to pull that kind of stuff in the Convention.

4 Likes

Jon Stewart explained Donald Trump’s nomination perfectly. Jon Stewart said that if you look at life through the eyes of the average GOP Voter, who has been spoonfed a steady diet of AM Talk Radio and Fox News rhetoric for decades, Mexicans are drug dealing rapists who were crossing the border to inflict harm on your families and communities, that all muslims were either terrorists or terrorist sympathizers, etc, the Trump phenomenon is not only understandble, is not crazy. It’s the only SANE option. Trump’s proposals to build a wall, rip 11 million latinos from their loved ones and deport them, bar all muslims from entering the country, create a national registry databaes to keep tabs on current muslims,etc. truly becomes the only SANE policy position. With that backdrop, It’s the Moderate Republian Establishment’s stance that we need to come to terms with rapist drug dealers and perhaps give them a path to citizenship would be an insane and incomprehensible policy position.

Thus it is with Bernie and his rhetoric. When you make claims that nothing short of a “revolution” is called for (not “Hope”, not “Change”, not a “new day in America” … Revolution!!!), that the “system is rigged”, that you’ve never lost a contest because you didn’t have enough voters but only because the DNC’s thumb was on the scale, that everything bad that has ever happened to you is become some nefarious and unspecified “1%” schemed it against you and the person who is winning the election is in cahoots with them … throwing chairs and threatening violence to the perpetrators really becomes the only legitimate reaction.

The political rhetoric in this country is out of control. The reaction from the extremes on both sides in this country is batshiat insane. Unhinged frothing at the mouth conspiracy theories that used to be pointed and laughed at is now traded as common coin. Huffington Post will gladly put up Tim Robbins cracked up conspiracy theories up on their editorial page (as long as they don’t have to pay him, natch) for click revenue and given a legitimacy. Even worse, it’s cynically used as a means to maniuplate (often the most vulnerable and naive) for end results. This election is just reaping what has been sown.

21 Likes

You got it. Sanders has taken his supporters so far down the rabbit hole that even if he did back Clinton (which I don’t think he’ll do) it won’t matter to his followers. They’ll make up some reason why he’s doing it and act accordingly.

6 Likes

Was kind of surprised to see a negative article about Sanders in the A2 paper this morning - reprint of a WaPo article.

Bernie is being nudged all right.

8 Likes

Well you had better talk to your friend because he sure doesn’t sound like someone who will go quietly.

2 Likes

Well said. Very depressing but well said!

3 Likes

At this point, I’m really embarrassed I supported Sanders in the primary. I voted for him because I liked his positions and I liked the idea of a democratic president that wouldn’t negotiate against himself when dealing with the republicans. However, that was before this primary got so nasty. Back when the primary happened, things were still congenial. If I had known I was empowering him to rip apart the Democratic Coalition and give Drumpf a chance at getting elected, I would have never even considered it. Sorry Bernie supporters, but he has destroyed any credibility he had with this Sanders voter.

9 Likes

Have you read this?
Bernie is determined to harm Hillary’s chances in order to gain leverage at the convention.

3 Likes

Thanks for the link to the WaPo article. I found this of particular interest:

Sanders is making fantastical promises that are unfeasible. Eventually someone has to pay the bills for his promised “revolution.” Studies published last week by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center and the Urban Institute concluded that Sanders’s plans are short a total of more than $18 trillion over a decade. “His programs would cost the federal government about $33 trillion over that period … yet he has put forward just $15 trillion in new taxes,” Wonkblog’s Max Ehrenfreund explained.

Not only would most of his ideas be dead on arrival in Congress, but many observers wonder whether the septuagenarian socialist even fully understands how the economy works.

Jane’s issues are Jane Issues but the above speaks directly to just how pie in the sky many of Bernie’s ideas are in the real world. It’s that MATHS again, dammit!

5 Likes